MODERNISM

BACKGROUND OF THE PERIOD

• The Victorian period ran mostly during Queen
Victoria's rule from about 1837 to 1901. This
period of literature is marked by change and even
upheaval.
• Society was changing rapidly in terms of its
technology, manufacturing, economy, and science.
• There was great inequality, which many authors
focused on in their writing.
• Victorians also saw their role as encouraging
society to fulfill a higher, more noble role in the
larger world.
• The differences and reactions to the Victorian
period, which became known as Modernism.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PERIOD
• Modernism is a reaction to the previous Victorian period first
and foremost. Modernism has a clear break with tradition, which
was so important to Victorians.
• Writers could see the world moving away from the certainty of
the Victorian era towards instability and the unknown.
• Modernism is marked by experimentation and individualism.
This came from the shocking reality of the Great War, World War
I, which lasted from 1914 to 1918. WWI forced a more bleak
perspective and left people struggling to understand how such
horrors could take place.
• Modernists turned from society to explore the individual,
sometimes recording the workings of the mind, usually the dark
workings.
• The modernist saw a sense of decay and growing alienation for
individuals.
MODERNISM: A LITERARY MOVEMENT
• Modernism was an artistic movement
that began around the turn of the 20th
century and went roughly through 1965.
• There isn't a hard and fast rule for when
the Victorian period ended (outside the
death of Queen Victoria) and when
Modernism began.
• That is the trouble with literary
movements; though some writers did in
fact work together, authors are generally
connected through consistent trends in
the themes of their works.
MODERN LITERATURE CHARACTERISTICS
• Commonly written in first-person perspective
• Focuses on the inner workings of the characters, and their consciousness
• Themes of negative consequences of capitalism and machinery
• Themes of isolation and individualism
• Tones that center around the absurdity of society and its future
• Formalism of language
• Presence of symbolism
 STYLE IN MODERNISM
IN THE NEW PERIOD OF MODERNISM EXPERIMENTATION WITH TIME, LANGUAGE,
METER, TECHNIQUE, AND THEMES WAS HIGHLY PREVALENT.

NEW POETRY STYLE • Novelists, like D.H. Lawrence

In poetry free verse or vers libre was used highly by modernists. and Virginia Wolfe, tried to
While poets like T.S. Eliot and Irish poet William Butler Yeats show the inner workings of
used images to convey a mood or emotion. Sudden language the main characters' mind by
shifts and bleak setting also became a part of Modernist poetry. using stream of
consciousness. They also
liked to abruptly shift the
time.
BRITAIN AT WAR
Many authors and poets during this time period wrote about their daily life during the war, either at
home or on the front lines, this cause many writings to be about the chaos and despair surrounding
everyday life. Cynical and pessimistic accounts of daily life were accompanied by battlefield accounts
of human suffering.
 RELEVANT MODERNIST WRITERS
VIRGINIA WOOLF T.S ELLIOT D.H. LAWRENCE
• To the Lighthouse • The Wasteland • Lady Chatterley’s lover

JAMES JOYCE
• Ulysses